


Little Known Ways to Find a Family

by Pretty_In_Plaid



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Related, Case Fic, Childhood Memories, Eurus is already dead, F/M, Family Feels, Family Reunions, Found Family, Grandma Hudson, Healing, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, John is not happily married, M/M, Mary is into some shady crap, Moriarty is connected to her, Mrs. Hudson Ships It, Mutual Pining, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Pining, Pining Idiots, Pining John Watson, Pining Sherlock Holmes, S4 happened my way, Secretly a Virgin, Sex Work, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock finds having a family is not boring, Sherlock is a Good Parent, Sherlock is pining so hard, Substance Abuse, Virgin Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-27 09:49:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15022007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pretty_In_Plaid/pseuds/Pretty_In_Plaid
Summary: A strange girl turns up with a case for Sherlock and problems for John.Her claims that some of Moriarty's network still remains, with only one last member of his inner circle, alive, and running the ruins of his criminal empire, are terrifying to John and intriguing to Sherlock. That and the girl herself, what with her ability to manipulate and interrogate, without giving up the secret she holds so close to her heart, even he can't figure it out. For now.But when he gets close to the truth, for once in his life, Sherlock's not sure he wants too.





	1. Strange Girl on a Doorstep

The case began when the Watson household ran out of milk.

 

John Watson had stared down the empty milk carton, as if that would prompt it into refilling itself, but after wincing his way through a cup of tea without milk, he’d admitted defeat. That was how, that afternoon, he had ended up in the dairy aisle of the nearby supermarket, with Rosie in a baby carrier on his chest.

 

“Take Rosie to the shops with you. She’ll probably enjoy it.”

 

Mary had said this while looking for her keys, responding to a call from work, until she’d eventually found them in a bowl on the worktop.

 

Rosie was enjoying it. By grabbing at anything in reach and trying to pull it off the shelves. Multiple times.

 

“Decisions, decisions.”

 

He examined the tub of yoghurt he’d picked up in his left hand from all the brightly coloured, same looking tubs in the aisle, placed it back on the shelf to be able to pick up the tub on the right. Then, he picked up the tub on the left again. Honestly, he could pick any random tub – Rosie still wouldn’t eat it.

 

“All of them wrong.”

 

 _You’re good at making those,_ a snide voice remarked from some corner of his brain.

 

No, Mary made the wrong decision tonight bailing on their quiet night in to go and sort some work thing out. He repressed the twinge in his chest from the memory of the luck and good day he wished her hitting the closed door.

 

“I’ll see you tonight,” she’d said. Then later she claimed she wouldn’t be able to make it home and that she was sorry.

 

“Can I help you sir?”

 

John jumped. A young girl in a polo shirt with the shop’s logo and a nametag, that read KRISHA, bounced up and down on her heels next to time. Before he had the chance to refuse her, she noticed Rosie and clapped her hands.

 

“Oh! I see. When my cousin had to switch to proper food, it was actually hard to get her to like yoghurt. So,” – she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach a yellow tub with bees on it from the very top shelf, pausing from breath for the first time – “we gave her one with honey in it, because she, like most little ones, enjoyed the sweetness. If you mix some with mashed bananas and put it on brown bread you can get her eating toast and sandwiches in no time! Because I know that…”

 

She paused, looked at him as she handed him the tub, waiting on a name.

 

“Rosie.”

 

“Because I can just tell Rosie likes honey, don’t you Rosie?”

 

Rosie doesn’t give her a reply, fascinated by the girl’s black-brown curls as they bobbed up and down, reaching for them as Krisha pulled faces at her. John added another tub to his basket, leaning it against the extra carton of milk. If it was good for tricking stubborn babies into eating, hopefully, it would work on stubborn consulting dectitives.

 

“A family with a sweet tooth I see.”

 

She smiled, knowingly. He almost wanted to laugh, because she was wrong but explaining would be so complicated.

 

“Yeah,” he mused aloud. “Something like that.”

 

Later, as he wrestled with full shopping bags to be able to jiggle the key in the lock of 221B, Rosie mewled her in her sleep and shook a tiny fist to voice her annoyance at being jostled. He had to pause, half in the door, just to smile at her. It still blew his mind sometimes that two nuclei could become this whole other human that was part of you. Medical school may teach you how it happens scientifically (DNA and cell division and alleles) but it was something entirely different, entirely miraculous when it was your own child.

 

“Hello?”

 

A soft voice, belonging to a tall young woman bundled in worn clothes with a bulky backpack and a grimy hat pulled low over tangled brown hair, came from behind him. She nipped at a hangnail. A member of Sherlock’s homeless network.

 

“Is this 221B Baker Street?”

 

“Yes, hello,” he ventured in a way he hoped was kind. “Are you here to pass information onto Sherlock?”

 

The homeless girl glanced side to side suspiciously. Either the paranoia of a junkie coming down from a high or someone genuinely afraid of being followed. Junkie, he wanted to say, because she shivered in the warm spring air as if it were icy water.

 

“I’ve got a case. I’m a client.”

 

He doubted it. She swayed on her feet so he kneed open the door, so the least disturbance was caused to the sleeping Rosie. At least, he could get her help easily if she came inside. She was only young after all and wanted help.

 

“Okay. What’s your name then love?”

 

“Enola.”

 

She followed him up the stairs, slowly, eyes roaming as she took in her surroundings, half cautious, half curious. She reminded him of a wild rabbit, that’d been disturbed by a passer-by and couldn’t decide whether it should run or not. A slight limp, most probably from an old injury that hadn’t healed properly, was troubling her and as he waited for her to catch up, he had the chance to get a better look at her; the more John looked, the more concerned he grew.

 

Arms folded tight across her chest, to ground herself and give her courage, gripping at her wrists with long but broken nails. Too skinny for her height, maybe just a growth spurt or body build on first inspection now looked more like malnutrition. The bones in her face were too defined, her eyes too sunken. Normal teenagers also don’t shiver, with sweat on their brow.

 

Shouldering the door to the flat open, he gestured with his head for her to sit and excused himself to place Rosie down so she could continue her nap.

 

“Sherlock, client.”

 

The mop of ridiculous dark curls appeared, adorned with a a pair of oversized goggles, in the kitchen doorway. John found himself biting his bottom lip, stopping the laughter in his chest from bursting out. An annoyed Sherlock Holmes could put a toddler, even Rosie, to shame with his petulance and pouting.

 

He barely locked eyes with the client before John saw him freeze for a second, a sign, however brief that he was interested. He used a long finger to pull the goggles from his head, following the motion through by tilting his head. John could almost see the rapid firing of his neurons, connections being made so fast your head spun if you attempted to follow, deductions that seemed impossible and a new door being flung open in his mind palace.

 

Sherlock flicked his eyes towards him, asking a silent question that John almost missed. There was a social rule he knew he had to follow but he wasn’t sure what one, so he was asking for help.

 

“They say you can deduce a person’s life story from their clothes.”

 

Enola rolled her eyes at him as she said it, standing up, but her hands were shaking, betraying her nerves. However, she looked him right in the eyes and never broke the eye contact.

 

“The pity in your eyes is evidence enough that it’s true. So maybe you’ll also be able to see that you missed one.”

 

“Missed one what?”

 

A cutting remark, but the indifference it dripped was fake. Sherlock always pretended to be uninterested when he was really interested. John had given up trying to figure out why.

 

“The sniper. R. Moran.”

 

“Moriarty.”

 

“No. His right-hand man.”

 

“I got him in Serbia,” was said with a smirk.

 

“You didn’t.”

 

“How would you know?”

 

John felt like a cat watching a tennis match while watching the two volley words with each other. They fell into silence, staring. Just staring. Slowly, they circled one another but never broke the eye contact even once. It was like Enola was reflecting Sherlock’s stare onto him. John was reminded of the telepathic battles in the superhero comics he loved as a child. Either that, or the way wild animals size each other up, to decide whether the fight was one they could win.

 

Finally, Enola moved her eyes down. She lifted the back of her shirt up to show the tattoo just above the base of her spine. Thorny stems made of chicken scratch formed an “M”.

 

An involuntary shudder ran through John. Despite reminding himself daily that Moriarty was dead, definitely dead, the name still made him shiver. Another part of the comfort was the knowledge that Sherlock had dismantled his network while being…away. He couldn’t imagine someone escaping, although he didn’t doubt the girl. How could he when she said it so plainly but so desperate to be believed? He just harboured a secret wish she was simply confused or over-exaggerating.

 

“You’ve seen this mark in case files before. You know what trade I was in.”

 

She flinched as she swallowed, and John felt his stomach plummet. Early suspicions were looking more likely.

 

“And the trade was?”

 

He prompted her softly, as he felt he already knew the answer, but he clung to the hope she’d prove him wrong. Enola blinked at him as if he was stupid.

 

“Sex. With minors.”

 

The obviously was implied.

 

“Born into it. Expected to die into it. But I escaped and so you’re going to help me rescue the others.”

 

Scrabbling at her front pocket, she produced a photograph.

 

“Two in particular.”

 

The background was a typical living room, with faded wallpaper and an old, creased sofa. It looked like a normal house. But it’s the people Enola is tapping at with a yellowed nail that concerns John.

 

“Hestia.”

 

She pointed to the swaddled baby in the photo, John thought she couldn’t be more than a week old, with her wisp of dark hair and screwed up face.

 

“Perseus.”

 

Gentley, she placed her nail on the face of the dark-haired boy with sepia brown skin. He was young, not yet ten, but already skin and bone. He was staring straight into the camera but biting his lip like he was trying to stop it from trembling.

 

“Me.”

 

Enola is recognisable in the photograph, younger but no less battle hardened, sitting, her head held high and staring down the camera. One of her arms is around the fourth person’s waist, like she’s trying to hold her up with only one arm.

 

None of the children are smiling, all of them have the same silvery grey eyes, and Enola keeps the face of the fourth person deliberately covered by her thumb. As soon as she noticed John looking, she snapped;

 

“She’s dead.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t be. It was years ago.”

 

Sherlock drew their attention as he fidgeted. His brow was furrowed in a cross between frustration and sympathy and John felt a rush of affection. Sherlock hated when clients prevented him from getting answers by putting the information forward as a personal narrative. His brain did not work with life stories, they were not what it wanted either. John could see him itching to snap, to get to the facts, the things that would let him solve the puzzle and the case.

 

But he didn’t. He listened to the girl, considered her feelings. He kept flicking his eyes towards John to check that he was doing it right. John loved his friend for it in that moment.

 

“Escape has only been possible since Moriarty’s network began to get dismantled, about three years ago, but now, Moran is back. Hunting us down.”

 

Enola tried to laugh but ended up making a strangled noise. Her legs gave away from under her and she collapsed on the sofa. John, having leapt from his chair, steered her by holding her elbow

 

“That’s why I am here. See I don’t mind that the crosshairs are on me. But my little brother and sister…”

 

A tear slipped from under her lashes and John placed his hand on top of hers. His heart almost broke from the pain from the thoughts of how this girl had survived, kept her siblings safe and what she’d been forced to do. The desire to hug her nearly overwhelmed him.

 

“I’ll find your siblings and end the brothel.”

 

Low, dark but soft, like an audio equivalent to velvet, Sherlock used the softest voice John had ever heard him use.

 

“I promise. We promise.”

 

Enola nodded, wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. Her stomach rumbled, and she flushed. At the same moment, Rosie wailed to let them know she felt left out.

 

"Get Rosie, I'll go get biscuits off Mrs Hudson.”

 

Sherlock shot a smile that John felt was meant to be reassuring then raced to the stairs. The way Enola looked, it wasn’t as reassuring as it had been meant.

 

After a red-faced Rosie was calm and happily playing on Mrs Hudson’s floor, John came down with tea for them, Enola’s sugar loaded. Sherlock had produced old crime scene photos from somewhere. He was nodding as Enola made some point about a warehouse.

 

“Do you know these people?”

 

“His name was J-James. Older than most, about to be shipped out to who knows where. Made a safe house. I knew they got him when they returned A-A-Annie and S-Stella. If you don’t keep running, keep on the streets as a nobody they found you and took you out.”

 

“So, he helped you escape?”

 

“Yes, and others. About ten others, I lost track. They moved us around a lot. Warehouses as well as normal houses. Kept us in groups of ten at most, five at least. Some of the people were…okay? If you can call them that. Like this one lady, she knew I was fascinated by her polaroid camera so, after a client, she’d let me use it as a reward and I think she did feel bad. No. I know she did because she did take a photo of us when I asked her to.”

 

“Was she part of Moriarty’s network?”

 

“I don’t think so. More like the wife of some criminal whose activities were useful for the network. Got caught up and was too scared to leave, I’d say.”

 

Sherlock gave her an impressed look. Enola shrugged, taking a bite out of one of the biscuits he’d filched off Mrs Hudson.

 

“Not as stupid as I look.”

 

John handed her another photograph, smiling as soothingly as he could.

 

“No, so can you recognise anyone here?”

 

She lists names. Enola can name too many of the dead children for John’s liking. Each and every time she stutters on the first letter of their names. Her leg bounces more with every name. She doesn’t move the other as much and he has concerns that the limp is more serious than he first thought. Catching his eye, she pulled her legs closer and tucking them out of view.

 

“Will you tell the police what you’ve told us?”

 

Sherlock asked softly and when she nodded, smiled. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and pressed it to his ear as he left the room.

 

“Lestrade, it’s Sherlock. The time isn’t important. What is important is the teenage girl who turned up on John and mine’s doorstep.”

 

His voice became muffled as he closed the door behind him. John tried to ignore the Freudian slip of him calling Baker Street his and John’s.

 

“You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be safe.”

 

Enola snorted. She didn’t believe him, and John couldn’t blame her.

 

“They got everyone else. I’ve only been out of there for three days. I would have come here quicker, but I was researching my options.”

 

“I’m sure there wasn’t many.”

 

“Oh, you’d be surprised. There were many options but not many were actually good.”

 

She sighed.

 

“I’m considering them right now because I don’t think the police will make it until tomorrow.”

 

John was about to comfort her that Lestrade would arrive tonight but was interrupted by Sherlock throwing the door open and his phone at the wall.

 

“Lestrade can’t come until morning. Wrapping up a case, apparently.”

 

He paced the kitchen like a caged tiger and sneered at the fact that Lestrade could solve a case without his help. Enola was flicking her eyes between him and John. Time to step in before Sherlock scared the girl any more.

 

“I can stay here. The police will come here in the morning anyway, no point in trying to find a shelter.”

 

Enola beat him to it. She picked up her backpack and went into Sherlock’s bedroom. Sherlock looked affronted and John had to suppress a laugh. He clicked send on the text he’d wrote for Lestrade and turned to Sherlock.

 

“I asked him to bring a female officer when he comes tomorrow.”

 

“Not Donovan.”

 

It was said in unison. Enola was leaning on the doorway of Sherlock’s bedroom and John had the feeling she was enjoying the surprise on their faces. She threw one last line over her shoulder, before disappearing into Sherlock’s bedroom;

 

“I told you, Doctor Watson. I did my research. I mean, you were highly recommended, but I had my doubts.”

 


	2. Secrets She Keeps

Sherlock scrutinised Enola intently.

 

She was keeping a secret. Obvious, from the way she squirrelled her backpack, the quiver in her voice when she’d said the young woman, whose face she’d refused to uncover, had died. It was irritating to know she was keeping something from him but not know what that something was. He sat, perched lightly on his heels in his armchair, waiting for her to give him more information.

 

She gave him nothing more. Instead, she regarded him coolly. She was giving nothing up – willingly or unwillingly. Sherlock couldn’t deduce anything more about her.

 

He let her keep her secret out of respect for how tough a life she had led, that she was young, tired, shaking with fear and the fact the case she’d brought him was a wonderful puzzle. Fascinating that one of Moriarty’s network had wriggled away. (How? How? How?) 

 

For now. 

 

John had been satisfied with the small amount of information they’d been given and had shown Enola how to use their shower. 

 

(His shower. Not theirs anymore. Not John’s anymore. Must keep an eye on that, John noticed the Freudian slip earlier.) 

 

Now both of them are sitting at the kitchen table, and he hates the way his skin is crawling. 

 

“Are you expecting me to sleep on the sofa? Now my room has been appropriated.” 

 

He hates saying it. He hates the fact he’s almost making them fight, to be able sleep in John’s old room, which he doesn’t even want to do, with sheets that no longer smell like him, without the cheesy novels hidden in the nightstand he’d never admit he had read, just to see if he could see them through John Watson’s eyes, even if he was tortured by the Serbian Mafia again and again. Without the anatomy prints, framed on the walls. Without John’s cologne bottles and tubs of gel, glittering on his chest of drawers. Without the tiny signs that kept the presence of John Watson even when he wasn't in the flat, things waiting for his return. It’s a room full of ghosts. 

 

“You don’t sleep anyway. Especially while on a case.” 

 

It’s true. John doesn’t even look up from his cup of tea. Sherlock is glad. If he looks up right now, he’ll see how fidgety he really is. He’ll know something is up with him. (John always knows. John is the only one who has ever always known.) 

 

In their silence, the sound of the shower was unnaturally loud. 

 

“I will also be sleeping with my Sig under my pillow for the first time in years, just in case. There are people who want to kill her and probably you, probably also me. I’ve got your back.”

 

 _When don’t you_ , Sherlock thinks. It’s bittersweet. 

 

So was this. John, relaxed and content, drinking tea in his favourite mug, in what Sherlock would always consider their kitchen, watching Rosie as she played in the living room. In the lamplight, her curls looked like golden silk and John’s skin settled back into the tanned colour it had been when he met him. The fact that the toys Rosie was playing with, a plush red blood cell with googly eyes she was using as a dummy and the blocks that made up the periodic table, were ones that he’d brought, made the pain worse. 

 

Everything he had never known he had ever wanted was there in his flat, ( _Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock_ ) texting their wife and mother to let them know that they wouldn’t be home until tomorrow. 

 

Fate is cruel - that's why he has never trusted it before. Now he finds he can believe in something as fickle and cruel as fate. He can't believe it's coincidences, these events making him fall for the first time in his life for someone unattainable. He has to remind himself to relax his jaw. 

 

( _Our emotions should be as educated as our intellect darling. If you cannot keep your emotions controlled, Will, they'll be the enemies of your logic and reason._ )

 

( _I know Mama, I know_ )

 

The bathroom door slammed, pulling Sherlock out of his memories, as Enola came out of the shower in an old band shirt of John’s and a pair of baggy tracksuit trousers. She had looked towards Sherlock’s bedroom door. But Rosie pointed, babbled and Enola melted, kneeling to play with her. John was watching the two of them, smiling at the fact their guest was relaxing. It was clear that Enola was using it as a coping mechanism, used to doing it to calm down the younger children when they were upset, so it subconsciously had a soothing effect on her. 

 

 _Maybe it's clear to you_ , says the voice of John Watson, the voice of reason for 'normal' people he has created from emotional attachment, that now has permanent residence in his brain. Sherlock shakes his head to get it quiet again. 

 

John was watching the two girls play for a similar reason. He’d had a fight with Mary. It’s why his phone was currently on top of the fridge. He also kept tapping his nails against his mug which was another indicator he was worrying. He was avoiding her because she’d started it. She had refused to take Rosie because she was going out with friends and had told him, if he wanted to stay over, he’d have to go and get the overnight bag himself. 

 

It made him uncomfortable when Mary and John fought. He needed to see the two of them happy for the pain to be worth it and he was sick of the hope that flickered every time John seemed unhappy in his marriage. Getting back to the closeness that they’d had before the fall tore him up. It was…nice…to have his best friend back but going back to being that close, knowing now that John definitely did not feel the same, (he had got married for God’s sake) was torture. Sherlock had been tortured enough in his life to not consider it an over-exaggeration. 

 

Mrs Hudson had appeared when John left to get the overnight bag and made a bacon sandwich for Enola, who seemed uncomfortable with being treated so nicely. Sherlock knew what that was. It was not being used to it. She was making herself at home nevertheless. Why? 

 

She was planning on staying here a long time. That raised more questions. 

 

He watched her deduce Mrs Hudson. Flatter her by eating everything she put in front of her, but Sherlock wasn’t sure how much of that was a tactical decision and how much was simply her being starving. 

 

Every so often, she’d stare back, catching him before he could go back to being interested in his microscope. She stopped when John came back and focused her attention on him. He’d like to say he kept his attention focused on her, figured out her secret, but instead, he focused on John. 

 

_John._

 

John in their kitchen, showing Enola how to use the kettle because she didn’t know how. John in their kitchen, joking, (“as a doctor, I shouldn’t be able to condone that much sugar with a clear conscience”) as Enola heaped sugar into her mug. 

 

There was a movie John had made him watch the other day, about pirates. Most of it had been boring and deleted but one thing he hadn’t managed to delete, although he had wanted to, was the compass. A compass that didn’t point north, but towards your heart’s desire. Sometimes, Sherlock felt his brain was like that compass. It didn’t matter whatever else he used to occupy his mind whenever he opened that case, an arrow pointed towards Dr John Watson, Captain of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, his best friend and his blogger. 

 

 _Ugh_ , he was indulging in sentiment. And in metaphors and similes as well. Time to get back into the facts, the work, the case. Time to figure out what Enola was hiding.  John was getting ready for bed, Enola had retired to his bedroom a while ago. Fatigued as she was, she had to be asleep. He went to examine the contents of her backpack to obtain more evidence. 

 

“You’re not half as sneaky as you think.” 

 

Enola was sitting, cross-legged on his bed, in the dark, obviously waiting for him. 

 

“Maybe you’re just more observant than they are.”

 

Teeth flashed in the dark as a rueful smile.

 

“I learnt from the best.”

 

“I don’t remember teaching you.” 

 

Enola barked a laugh. She wasn’t looking at him in awe or disgust like people normally do. She was amused by him and, although, she regarded him warily, she wasn’t put off. He was being studied. He studied her back. 

 

Malnourished and weak because she has spent the majority of her life inside, letting her out in public would draw attention so she’d missed out on exercise, socialisation and sunlight. Exhausted from a hard life being put through multiple traumatic experiences by abusers, and not sleeping due to nightmares. A fractured hip that had healed without proper medical care causing a permanent limp and scars from rough treatment, some that still bothered her with the way they gave her phantom pain. A tremor in her hand as she worried out of her mind for her siblings. Glad to be clean and able to shower. Nothing about the secret apart from the fact she hadn’t wanted to show the face of the young woman in the photograph. Her good leg was wiggling underneath her bad one – she was clearly feeling shaken about almost showing her. 

 

“Why Lestrade?” 

 

The question caught him off guard. 

 

“What?” 

 

“Lestrade. He’s the officer you work with. I told you, I’ve done my research.” 

 

“He’s more competent than other officers. How did you find out about Donovan?” 

 

"Waited outside Scotland Yard until I saw Lestrade, who was with a woman he called Donovan."

 

"Why request a female officer that isn't her then?"

 

"She wasn't very nice about you. Made me wonder whether going to you was worth my time. Lestrade stuck up for you if you're interested to know. They both agree you're a dick but they couldn't say that you can't solve cases. I told you, I've done my research."

 

"You've been thorough."

 

There’s a brief silence before she speaks again. 

 

“He’s also helped you get clean, hasn’t he? Promised you cases if you didn’t use?” 

 

He doesn’t understand why the question is important to her and he doesn’t want to talk about it. 

 

“Irrelevant. Who’s the person in the photograph?” 

 

“I’ll answer yours if you answer mine.” 

 

Sherlock clenches his jaw in frustration to stop himself from snarling. A tiny bit of him was impressed. Younger, sharper and more experienced than Wilkins, Enola gave as good as she got, and she certainly knew how to strike a bargain. The other parts of him were frustrated that she’d figured out, already, that he’d do anything to figure out what he wanted to know and with himself that he was going to offer up his personal information to get hers. 

 

“Yes.” 

 

“Yes, what?” 

 

“Yes, Lestrade said he’d let me do my work if I got clean.” 

 

She sat watching, waiting. 

 

“He didn’t give me a case unless he could prove I was totally clean. That’s how I know Lestrade and why he’s the officer I work with.” 

 

“The person in that photograph is my mother. She uses heroin too.” 

 

A tear escaped from the corner of Enola’s eye and ran down her carefully blank face. 

 

“Used. She used heroin. She was my mother."

 

"You did too, that's why it's important to you to know why I quit."

 

"Wouldn't you if you were in my situation? It was never anything too serious and never too often. I was normally trying to look after my siblings and whatever poor kids they had in there with me. But sometimes, it got too much okay? So I wanted to escape my head, my situation, my life - whatever! Don't tell me you wouldn't do the same, hell, you did." 

 

She closed her eyes and sighed deeply. Sherlock hoped she wouldn’t cry, he wouldn’t know what to do if she cried. The next laugh is wet but her eyes are dry. She made him jump by slamming her hand against the sheets, like she was attempting to slap them, and, sharply, going: “Right!” 

 

He let her compose herself. She’d decided to offer more information, her steady hands giving her away. 

 

“Go get a map, coloured tape, pens and that honey yoghurt in the fridge.” 

 

What? The confusion must have shown on his face because she gave another barking laugh. 

 

“I need fuel if I’m going to spend my night pinpointing brothels and safe houses. And I have a weakness for honey, anything sweet really. Coloured tape for different things and pens for notes.” 

 

He nodded and left the room. John gave him a funny look as he went into the fridge to grab food, a map clutched in his other hand. He logged it but mainly ignored it for now. There was the work to do. He’d reassure John later. 

 

“So where do we start, Enola?” 

 

Use their name. It makes them feel safe and builds a connection. Lestrade had taught him that when trying to get him to use the force’s interviewing techniques. Boring. Normally. She looks at him like she might cry. Maybe she realised that it was the first time he’d said her name. 

 

The photograph is thrown onto the map. The woman is in her 30s, sickly pale clothed in a grimy hoodie, wrapped in a ratty old blanket. She had thin eyebrows, a full mouth and sunken eyes. Her dark hair is long and matted. Enola and her brother have inherited her high cheekbones and all her children share her grey eyes. 

 

“Water,” Enola said grimly, pulling Sherlock out of his thoughts. “We start by the water.” 

 

They get to work. 

 


End file.
